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International Journal of Business and Management Review
Vol.4, No.9, pp.43-57, November 2016
Published by European Centre for Research Training and Development UK (www.eajournals.org)
43 ISSN: 2052-6393(Print), ISSN: 2052-6407(Online)
Managerial and Controlling Ownership, Profitability, Firm Size and
Financial Leverage in Nigeria
Uche T. Agburuga*1 Department of Accounting, Faculty of Management Sciences,
University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Emmanuel A L Ibanichuka Department of Accounting, Faculty of Management Sciences,
University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
ABSTRACT: An ordinary least squares regression test of sample of firms in manufacturing
and services industries sorted into overall, low and high managerial and controlling interests
(MCOWN), shows financial leverage (FL) as an increasing (decreasing) function of MCOWN,
for firms with low (high) MCOWN and service (manufacturing) industry, and negatively
(positively) related to profitability and size for firms with high (low) MCOWN. Result suggests
increasing (decreasing) use of debt capital when MCOWN is low (high) and that the higher
(lower) the MCOWN, the greater (lesser) the agency cost contradicting the notion that FL is a
governance mechanism that mitigates agency problem.
KEYWORDS: return on equity, return on assets, free cash flow theory, managerial and
controlling interest hypothesis, convergence of interest hypothesis, entrenchment of interest
hypothesis
INTRODUCTION
Since Jensen and Meckling (1976) established the link between managerial behaviour, agency
cost and ownership structure a number of empirical studies has been conducted. This strand of
research has been extended to show how agency cost affects the capital structure of the firm.
In a study conducted by Akhtar and Oliver (2005) they indicated that agency cost as well as
bankruptcy risk, value of assets, profitability and size are some of the factors responsible for
the level of financial leverage. There seem to be a consensus that financial leverage is
negatively related to profitability. There however appear to be varied opinions on the reason
for this negative relation.
Linking the managerial self interest hypothesis and the capital structure of the firm as a product
*Corresponding Author
Correspondence should be sent to Uche T. Agburuga, G P O Box 11259, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Telephone: +234 803 309 5424 E-mail: [email protected]
International Journal of Business and Management Review
Vol.4, No.9, pp.43-57, November 2016
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44 ISSN: 2052-6393(Print), ISSN: 2052-6407(Online)
of managerial decision making, Brailsford, Oliver & Pua (1999) empirically established the
effect that external block ownership has on managerial incentive to reduce non-diversifiable
employment risk by reducing the debt level and the effect of managerial ownership on financial
leverage. The combined effects of both external block ownership and managerial ownership
on managerial incentives and ultimately on financial leverage were examined using the agency
framework of analysis. They found a positive relationship between external block ownership
and financial leverage and a curvilinear link between managerial ownership and financial
leverage. This suggests that at low levels of external block ownership, when managerial
ownership is expected to be more prominent, financial leverage is expected to be low. This is
because managers ensure that the firm’s exposure to the risk of bankruptcy is reduced and by
so doing the self interested managers reduce the risk of losing their jobs. We build on this work
and show that the combined impact of controlling interest (external block ownership) and
managerial ownership interest is a determinant of the level of financial leverage and therefore
an empirical proxy for agency cost. We further contend the direction of the relationship
between financial leverage and profitability is defined by the level of agency cost. Thus at low
level of managerial and controlling ownership, financial leverage is expected to be positively
related with profitability. At higher levels of managerial and controlling ownership, the
relationship between financial leverage and profitability is expected to be negative.
We therefore advance the managerial and controlling interest hypothesis that states that the
higher the level of managerial and controlling ownership the greater the agency cost and vice
versa; and that the level of managerial and controlling interest drives the relation between
financial leverage and profitability even as managers invest the additional funds provided by
external debt holders in perquisites and organisational inefficiencies. This contention is in
tandem with the free cash flow theory. Our findings support this arguement as well as the free
cash flow theory and contradict the notion that financial leverage is a governance mechanism
that mitigates agency problem.The positive relationship between financial leverage and
managerial and controlling interest and the negative relationship with profitability indicates
that self interested manager use financial leverage to promote organisational inefficiencies
rather than the interest of shareholders.
This study explains the relationship between financial leverage and managerial and controlling
interest, in the light of contending agency and stewardship theories. This explanation is
significant in a number of ways. It builds on free cash flow theory and provides evidence of
the persistence of agency cost despite the view to the contrary that financial leverage mitigates
agency problem. It provides empirical explaination of the often inconsistent and conflicting
finding in the literature regarding the relationship between financial leverage and profitability.
We provide evidence that contradicts the finding in extant literature that financial leverage is a
governance mechanism that mitigates agency problem. Our evidence shows that higher levels
of financial leverage rather than mitigating agency problem rather accentuates it as managers
were found to invest the additional external funds in perquisites and organisational
International Journal of Business and Management Review
Vol.4, No.9, pp.43-57, November 2016
Published by European Centre for Research Training and Development UK (www.eajournals.org)
45 ISSN: 2052-6393(Print), ISSN: 2052-6407(Online)
inefficiencies. It provides answer to what happens to the cash remaining after the interest and
other other obligations to providers of external finance has been settled based on the free cash
flow theory. The study is also significant because it is based on data of firms listed on the
Nigerian capital market and it therefore provides an ample opportunity for out of sample test
of the operation of the free cash flow theory in the Nigerian milieu. We show evidence of
managerial and controlling interest hypothesis which suggests that manager behaviour is first
constrained by rules and contracts and thereafter driven by self interest and before
finallyserving the equity interest of shareholders. Our evidence of a negative (positive)
relationship between financial leverage and profitability when the sample includes only firms
with high (low) managerial and controlling ownership lends credence to this hypothesis.
We also explore the differential impact of managerial and controlling ownership interest on
financial leverage in manufacturing and services industry. We found that when the relation is
negative as in the manufacturing industry, ROA is also negative and that when the relation is
positive as in the services industry, ROA is also positive suggesting that industry plays a key
role in defining how owner managers apply the free cash flow. It is interesting to find that ROE
moved in opposite direction with ROA suggesting that financial leverage is a(n) decreasing
(increasing) function of ROE in service (manufacturing) industry.
This work is similar to Brailsford et al (1999) who studied the effect of managerial share
ownership (MSO) and external block ownership (EBO) on financial leverage. It however differs
from Brailsford et al in that we combine their two measures to derive managerial and
controlling ownership (MCOWN). Managerial ownership and controlling ownership is
combined in this study because we believe that both groups of shareholders have similar
influence on the decision making process in the firm through their representation in the
governing boards.
The rest of the paper proceeds as hereafter:- In Section 2, empirical literature is reviewed;
Section 3 addresses theory and hypotheses development; Section 4 examines the methodology
and specification of model; Section 5 deals with result and discussion of findings and Section
6, the conclusion.
EMPIRICAL LITERATURE
The use of debt to supplement the capital provided by common equity has remained a persistent
characteristic of business firms. In some countries of the world the use of debt capital is rather
high as the market for bank loans, bonds, commercial papers and other debt instruments is
highly developed leading to the classification of those countries as bank financed as against
capital market financed countries (Nobes, 1998, La Porta et al, 1997).Even in capital market
financed countries, the use of debt capital is equally persistent. What has driven this persistence
of debt finance has been attributed to many factors.In a study of the determinants of the capital
International Journal of Business and Management Review
Vol.4, No.9, pp.43-57, November 2016
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46 ISSN: 2052-6393(Print), ISSN: 2052-6407(Online)
structure in capital market oriented and bank oriented economies Antoniou, Guney and Pudyal
(2008) found that financial leverage increases with tangibility of assets and size but decreases
with profitability, growth options and share price. This further corroborates the findings of Gill
and Mathur (2011) and Gill, Biger, Pai and Bhutani (2009).
Financial Leverage is a means of boosting returns to shareholders from investment in
productive activities using external debt capital. When productive activities generate cash
flows in excess of the available investment opportunities, financial leverage compels managers
to pay interest to debt holders rather than invest in managerial perquisites and organisational
inefficiencies. The free cash flow theory holds that financial leverage is a necessary governance
mechanism for managing agency cost arising from the separation of ownership from control
(Easterbrook, 1984; and Jensen, 1986). What has not been accounted for adequately is what
happens to the cash remaining after interest to debt holders has been paid. We explore the
impact of managerial and controlling ownership on financial leverage arising from debt capital
and offer some explaination as to how managers respond to the excess cash flow.
In an analysis of the inter-relationship of ownership concentration, capital structure, monitoring
and pecuniary incentives, Heinrich (2000) show that ownership concentration reduces
incentive to monitor the activities of management as owners assume more managerial decision
making roles. Along with the reduction in monitoring comes reduction in risk toelerance and
hence the loss of benefits accruing from risk taking which managers are paid to do. And in
tandem with standard model of lower risk lower return, profitability is negatively affected. But
to mitigate this loss, firms with ownership concentration employ leverage to share the risk of
decision making thus higher ownership concentration often leads to higher levels of financial
leverage. This argument has been used by Bergelof (1991) to justify the fact that the takeover
of firms which leads to highly concentrated ownership is always financed with debt capital.
Although this current study is related to ownership concentration, it is focused on the
magnitude and level of managerial and controlling ownership interest and its effect on financial
leverage and not on the concentration or dispersion of ownership as was the case with Heinrich.
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT
Stewardship theory states that managers act in the best interest of the firm and ultimately in the
best interest of common equity holders. It rejects the notion of self interested managers even
as it posits that managers are driven rather by self worth, sense of accomplishement and good
reputation and other non-financial feeling of accomplishment. Managers who are so motivated
by these non-financial goals ensure that decisions taken lead to the maximisation of shareholder
wealth. Managers shall therefore contract debt only if it is in the best interest of shareholders.
Therefore, guided by the notion of optimal leverage, even when managers contract debt it
should increase the wealth of shareholders by increasing profitability. Stewardship theory
therefore supports a positive relationship between financial leverage and managerial and
International Journal of Business and Management Review
Vol.4, No.9, pp.43-57, November 2016
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47 ISSN: 2052-6393(Print), ISSN: 2052-6407(Online)
controlling ownership interest and profitability.
The pecking order hypothesis states that firms first use internal resources in the form of retained
earnings for expansion and thereafter use debt capital (Myers & Majluf, 1984). They only issue
additional equity as a last resort suggesting that managers protect shareholders interest from
dilution as far as is practicable. The preference for debt capital over equity is positively viewed
by the market as a signal of potential profitability. Financial leverage is also viewed as a
governance mechanism that mitigates agency costs and helps protect the interest of non-
managerial and non-controlling (residual equity holder) shareholders from expropriation
(Jensen & Meckling, 1976). Jensen & Meckling further argue that managerial share ownership
helps to reduce agency problems through the convergence of interest of managers with those
of residual shareholders by reducing their incentives to invest in perquisites and other forms of
organisational inefficiencies. The level of managerial and controlling interest is therefore
expected to be positively related to financial leverage and profitability.
There is the suggestion that managers who seek to diversify or reduce their exposure to
employment risk reduce the debt level (Friend & Lang, 1988) as a strategy for reducing the
bankruptcy risk. They also strive to reduce their employment risk by ensuring the continued
viability of the firm (Amihud & Lev, 1981). This view is more in tune with the stewardship
theory where managers are expected to serve in the best interest of the firm. Managers therefore
use financial leverage as a mechanism for protecting the interest of shareholders. Under this
scenario, managerial ownership of shares should lead naturally to convergence of interest of
managers with those of other shareholders.
Despite the theoretical advantages of financial leverage, studies of the relation between capital
structure and profitability have revealed mixed results. Some show a positive relationship while
others show a negative relationship. The notion of optimal leverage suggests that there is a
level of financial leverage that maximises profitability beyond which profitability decreases
resulting in negative relation. Shubita & Alsawalhah (2012) states that agency cost could
instigate managers to use higher than appropriate level of financial leverage that result in a
negative relationship with profitability. We contend that the negative relationship between
financial leverage and profitability reported by prior studies is primarily due to agency cost
which stems in the main from the conflict of interest arising from the separation of ownership
from control. We further contend that managerial and controlling ownership is a good proxy
for agency cost and therefore drives the direction of the relationship between financial leverage
and profitability. To investigate this, we examine the impact of managerial ownership and
controlling ownership and profitability on financial leverage.
Furthermore and given the potential for opportunistic behaviour by owner-managers, agency
cost is expected to be positively related to managerial and controlling ownership while the
International Journal of Business and Management Review
Vol.4, No.9, pp.43-57, November 2016
Published by European Centre for Research Training and Development UK (www.eajournals.org)
48 ISSN: 2052-6393(Print), ISSN: 2052-6407(Online)
residual equity interest becomes the buffer for debt holders (Jensen & Meckling 1976). It has
been argued that rather than help to mitigate agency problem, managerial share ownership will
lead to the entrenchment of management resulting in an increase in expropriation of residual
shareholders (Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Fama & Jensen, 1983 and Agrawal & Nagarajan
(1990). Managers who want to superintend over a large business entity often use debt capital
for expansion over and above the optimal level. If these assertions hold true, then financial
leverage is therefore expected to be negatively related with managerial and controlling
ownership and profitability.
Thus managerial ownership may lead to either a positive or a negative relationship with
financial leverage. Brailsford et al (1999) argued that at low level of managerial share
ownership, management interest and shareholder interest are likely to converge leading to
increase in debt holding hence the convergence of interest hypothesis. At high level of
managerial share ownership, debt holding is likely to reduce as management becomes more
entrenched leading to the entrenchment of interest hypothesis. This has intuitive support in
prior studies that found a non-linear relationship between managerial share ownership and firm
value (McConnel & Servaes, 1990) (Morck, Shleifer, & Vishny, 1988). To test expected
direction of the relation between the level of managerial and controlling ownership and
financial leverage, we hypothesize that:-
Ho1: Financial leverage is not an increasing function of managerial and controlling ownership
for firms with low level of managerial and controlling ownership and not a decreasing function
of managerial and controlling ownership for firms with high managerial and controlling
ownership.
Ho2: Financial leverage is not an increasing function of managerial and controlling ownership
in service industry and not a decreasing function of managerial and controlling ownership in
manufacturing industry.
Ho3: Managerial and controlling ownership interest does not determine the direction of the
relationship of financial leverage with profitability and size.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, MODEL SPECIFICATION AND MEASUREMENT
OF VARIABLES
Sample, Data and Method of Data Analysis
We collected and analysed panel data for an eleven year period from 2004 to 2014 from the
published annual reports of a sample of 10 firms in manufacturing and services industrial
sectors of the Nigerian Stock Exchange intended to comprise 110 firm years. However, for
consistency and in other to eliminate the problems associated with outfliers, firms with
persistent negative profitability and those with negative equity balance were excluded from the
sample. Also firm years with incomplete data were also excluded from the data set, leaving
International Journal of Business and Management Review
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49 ISSN: 2052-6393(Print), ISSN: 2052-6407(Online)
only 94 firm years for our analysis. The service sector companies in our sample are engaged in
the provision of non-financial services.
There was a two stage sorting of the samples and eventual testing of the above stated
hypothesis. First , the samples were sorted into two portfolios (1) Firms with ratio of
managerial and controlling ownership interest below 50% (Low MCOWN) and (2) firms with
ratio of managerial and controlling ownership interest above 50% (High MCOWN). At the
second stage, and following the taxonomy of Gill & Marthur (2011) who analysed the
determinants of financial leverage, the samples were sorted into manufacturing and services
industrial sectors.
We conducted an ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression analysis with Microsoft
Excel data analysis tool.
The Model Specification and Regression
We attribute variations in financial leverage as being primarily driven by managerial and
controlling ownership which are the set of owner-managers who superintend over the affairs
of the company as members of board of directors and those who by virtue of their significant
ownership interest in the shares of the company, often exercise significant influence in the
policy and decisions of the firm. We specify a model of financial leverage (FL) that is a function
of managerial and controlling ownership (MCOWN) as independent variable, profitability
(ROE, ROA) as explanatory variable and subject to firm size (SIZE) as control variable and
industry dummy (InDummy) as categorical or indicator variable:-
FL = f(MCOWN, ROE, ROA, SIZE, InDummy)
Our regression model is of the form:-
FLit = βoit + β1itMCOWN + β2itROE + β3itROA + β4itSIZE + β5itInDummy + Ɛit
FLit is the dependent variable i in time t, βoit is the intercept and β1it, β2it, β3it and β4it are
coefficients expected to be
β2it, β3it,β5it < 0 < β1it, β4it, where managerial and controlling ownership is < 50% and
β1it, β2it, β3it, β5it < 0 < β4it where managerial and controlling ownership is > 50%.
The ellipsis, Ɛit is the error term.
Measure of Financial leverage
The composition of the capital structure otherwise known as financial leverage is measured in
this study as Long-term Debt denominated Equity (LDE).
Measurement of Managerial and Controlling Ownership
We measure managerial and controlling ownership as shares held by board of directors plus
shares held by shareholders having significant interest of more than 5%, as a ratio of total
shares in issue. Managerial ownership and controlling ownership is combined in this study
because we believe that both groups of shareholders have similar influence on the decision
International Journal of Business and Management Review
Vol.4, No.9, pp.43-57, November 2016
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50 ISSN: 2052-6393(Print), ISSN: 2052-6407(Online)
making process in the firm through their representation in the governing boards. They are
therefore subject to managerial self interest and managerial opportunism. Brailsford et al
(1999) however separated managerial ownership from controlling ownership and labeled the
later external block ownership.
Measures of Profitability
The traditional accounting measures of profitability are return on equity (ROE) and Return on
Assets (ROA). Return of Equity is measured as Profit after Interest and Tax divided by Equity
while retun of assets (ROA) is measured as Profit after Interest and Tax divided by Total
Assets. We consider these measures of profitability are adequate for the tests conducted
hence market measures of profitability were excluded.
Measure of Size and Industry Dummy
Following Anthoniou, Guney & Pudyal (2008) and Gill & Mathur (2011) we measure firm size
using the natural logarithm of sales to control for the effect of size on financial leverage. The
natural logarithm of sales was howver not lagged by one year as in the case of Gill & Mathur.
The indicator variable, Industry Dummy is assigned the value of 1 for maufcaturing and 0 for
service industry causing the effect of the later to disappear from the resulting beta estimate.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
Descriptive statistics and Correlation of Variables
The properties of the observed data indicate that the variables are positively skewed and
significant at 95% level of confidence. The only exception is natural log of size which shows
some irregularity perhaps due to standardization of the real numbers. We also observed that
the profitability measures are wide apart with ROA nearly 50% below ROE suggesting the
extent of disparity in debt financing of total assets relative to equity financing. However our
measure of financial leverage was the ratio long-term debt to equity with a mean value of about
31.5% as shown in Table 1.1 below.
All the variables in the model are positively correlated except ROA that is negatively correlated
with financial leverage, managerial and controlling ownership and Industry Dummy as shown
in Table 1.2. The negative correlation of ROA with financial leverage and MCOWN may have
been accentuated by measurement issues described above. The industry dummy variable
measures the ratio of manufacturing industry with respect to the service industry and the
negative correlation with ROA suggests that the later is more profitable than the former.
The approximately 58% correlation of LnSize with Indummy indicates the size of
manufacturing industries in the sample relative to service industries in the sample.
Manufacturing industries in the sample negatively contribute at least 50% to the value of ROA
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and positively contribute 36.5%, 15.8% and 22.3% to financial leverage, ROE and MCOWN
respectively.
Effect of High and Low Managerial and Controlling Ownership on Financial Leverage
The goodness of fit of the regression model shown by the regression statistics of High and Low
Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression estimates as indicated by the standard error in Table
1.3 are fairly similar. The coefficient of determination of the regression model for high
managerial and controlling ownership (MCOWN) was however slightly higher than the one for
low MCOWN.
However while the intercept and the beta coefficient of low MCOWN was positive, those for
high MCOWN were negative. This indicates that at low level of managerial and controlling
ownerhip, financing decision leads to increasing use of debt and hence financial leverage,
confirming that at this level there is convergence of interest between managerial and controlling
shareholders and the residual shareholders. On the other hand at high level of managerial and
controlling share ownership, financial leverage is a decreasing function of managerial and
controlling ownership thus supporting the entrenchment of interest hypothesis. This evidence
supports Brailsford et al (1999) who found that there is a curvilinear relationship between
managerial share ownership and financial leverage. It also corraborate the entrenchment of
interest hypothesis put forward by McConnel & Servaes (1990) and Morck, Schleifer & Vishny
(1988) that there is a curvilinear relationship between managerial share ownership and firm
value.
Effect of industry on the relation between managerial and controlling ownership and
financial leverage
Sorting the sample by industry yielded 15 observations for service industry and 79 observations
for manufacturing industry making 94 overall observations. The goodness of fit of the three
regression models were similar although service industry appears to be slightly better with a
coefficient of determination of about 61% and a low standard error statistic of 0.0766 compared
to the coefficient of determination of firms under the manufacturing portfolio of about 46%
and a standard error statistic of 0.2236 as shown in Table 1.4 below.
While the relationship between financial leverage and MCOWN is positive in service industry
with a beta coefficient of 0.3704, it returned negative with in manufacturing industry with a
beta coefficient of -0.2552 suggesting that financial leverage is an increasing function of
MCOWN in service industry and a decreasing function in manufacturing industry. This negates
the null hypothesis and confirms the alternate hypothesis that financial leverage is an increasing
function of managerial and controlling ownership in service industry and a decreasing function
of managerial and controlling ownership in manufacturing industry.
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The overall picture indicates that there is a negative but significant relationship between
financial leverage and and managerial and controlling ownership with a beta coefficient of -
0.4339 (p-value < 0.05 at 0.039) suggesting that the higher the MCOWN the lower financial
leverage. This confirms the entrenchment of interest hypothesis indicating an increase in
managerial opportunism. Our finding supports those of Brailsford et al (1999) however as
shown in the earlier on, this phenomenon is more pronounced in firms with high MCOWN and
manufacturing industry.
Effect of managerial and controlling ownership on the relationship between financial
leverage profitability and size
Also both ROE and ROA indicated a negative relation with financial leverage at low MCOWN
but at high level of MCOWN, only ROA showed a negative relation with fiancial leverage
perhaps confirming that financial leverage is only a decreasing function of profitability at low
level of MCOWN. Furthermore, the negative relation between financial leverage and
profitability is supportive of the pecking order hypothesis that profitable firms have lesser need
for external finance as retained profit builds equity financing. This phenomenon appears to be
associated more with low MCOWN than with high MCOWN since the later returned positive
and significant ROE. Under firms with low MCOWN, we found that financial leverage is a
decreasing function of size and an increasing function of MCOWN suggesting that smaller
firms tend to have lower level of financial leverage and higher MCOWN. For firms with high
MCOWN however, we found that financial leverage is an increasing function of size and a
decreasing function of MCOWN suggesting that larger firms tend to have higher level of
financial leverage and lower MCOWN. This is consistent with Brailsford et al (1999) and
Agrawal & Nagarajan (1990) who found that larger firms tend to have higher financial
leverage. These negate the null hypothesis and confirm the alternate hypothesis that managerial
and controlling ownership interest determines the direction of the relationship of financial
leverage with profitability and size.
We also observe that MCOWN drives the effect of profitability on financial leverage. In Table
1.4 for service industry, when MCOWN was positive (0.3704), financial leverage was a
decreasing function of ROE (-0.3551) and an increasing function of ROA (0.5388). On the
other hand, for manufacturing industry when MCOWN was negative (-0.2551), financial
leverage was an increasing and signifcant function of ROE (1.2135) and a decreasing and
significant function of ROA(-1.1877). The combined effect of manufacturing and service
industries indicate that overall, when financial leverage is a decreasing function of managerial
and controlling ownership interest (-0.4339), it has a positive relation with ROE (0.4305) and
LnSize (0.0751) and a negative relationship with ROA (-1.1877). These suggest that the
relationship of financial leverage with profitability and size in manufacturing and service
industries is determined by MCOWN. This finding perhaps provides explanation for Gill &
Marthur (2011) that found that financial leverage is positively (negatively) related to
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profitability (ROA) in manufacturing (services) industry and positively related to firm size in
both manufacturing and service industries.
CONCLUSION
We did not carry out a sensitivity analysis with regard to serial correlation and multi collinearity
as done by Brailsford et al (1999) for the main reason that we believe that the effect of serial
correlation and multi collinearity in our model is minimal given the low level of bivariate
correlation as in Table 1.2. However, despite not doing so we found that our result strongly
follows Brailsford et al and other similar studies and therefore we believe it a good out of
sample test of those studies carried out in Australia (Brailsford et al), United States (Gill, Biger,
Pai & Bhautani, 2009; McConnel & Servaes,1990), Canada (Gill & Marthur, 2011) and United
Kingdom (Short & Keasy,1999). This study has therefore contributed significantly to the
development of the theory and provided evidence within the scope of study.
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Table 1.1 Descriptive Statistics
FL ROE ROA MCOWN LnSize InDummy
Mean 0.3147 0.2063 0.1186 0.4512 16.5484 0.8404
Standard Error 0.0251 0.0200 0.0114 0.0190 0.1707 0.0380
Median 0.2236 0.1772 0.0955 0.5008 16.7426 1
Mode 0.1757 0.2440 0.1279 0.4780 N/A 1
Standard Deviation 0.2431 0.1936 0.1101 0.1844 1.6554 0.3682
Sample Variance 0.0591 0.0375 0.0121 0.0340 2.7404 0.1356
Kurtosis 0.1687 3.7245 3.5158 -0.4130 -1.1717 1.6037
Skewness 0.9048 -0.3557 1.0655 -0.7890 -0.1157 -1.8895
Range 1.0753 1.3975 0.7908 0.6579 6.2553 1
Minimum -0.1207 -0.6000 -0.2462 0.0581 13.1535 0
Maximum 0.9546 0.7974 0.5446 0.7160 19.4088 1
Sum 29.5775 19.3933 11.1510 42.4142 1555.5511 79
Count 94 94 94 94 94 94 Confidence Level(95.0%) 0.0498 0.0397 0.0226 0.0378 0.3391 0.0754
The table above shows that data for Financial Leverage (FL) and return on assets (ROA) are
positively skewed (with mean values higher than the median values), whereas return on assets
(ROE), MCOWN, LnSize and Indummy are negatively skewed (with the median values is higher
than the mean values).
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Table 1.2 Correlation Matrix
FL ROE ROA MCOWN LnSize InDummy
FL 1
ROE 0.2373 1
ROA -0.1196 0.5347 1
MCOWN 0.1327 0.2165 -0.3335 1
LnSize 0.3996 0.5514 0.0681 0.4858 1
InDummy 0.3650 0.1577 -0.5019 0.2232 0.5769 1
Financial Leverage (FL) is positively related to all the independent variables except ROA.
Similarly, ROA is negatively related with MCOWN, and InDummy. It is also note worthy that
most of the variables have low correlationship between them with highest correlation being
between LnSize and Indummy at 57%. This, in our view, limits the effect of auto-correlation.
Table 1.3
Comparison of Low and High Managerial Ownership OLS Regression Estimates
Low High
Statistics MCOWN MCOWN
Multiple R 0.4378 0.6290
R Square 0.1916 0.3957
Adjusted R Square 0.0853 0.3270
Standard Error 0.2209 0.2026
Observations 44 50
Variables Beta p Value Beta p Value
Intercept 1.3585 0.398 -0.7116 0.383
ROE -0.2299 0.694 *1.0830 0.007
ROA -0.5561 0.627 *-2.8830 0.027
MCOWN 0.7711 0.195 -0.4553 0.151
LnSize -0.0691 0.522 0.0877 0.153
InDummy -0.2067 0.579 -0.2032 0.471
*Beta coefficients are significant at 95% level of confidence
The goodness of fit of the regression models for Low and High MCOWN as indicated by the
standard errors above are fairly similar. The coefficient of determination of the regression
model for high MCOWN was however slightly higher than the one for low MCOWN. However
while the intercept and the beta coefficient of low MCOWN was positive, those for high
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MCOWN were negative suggesting that at low level of managerial and controlling ownerhip,
financing decision leads to increasing use of debt and hence financial leverage, confirming that
at this level there is convergence of interest between managerial and controlling shareholders
and the residual shareholders. On the other hand at high level of managerial and controlling
share ownership, financial leverage is a decreasing function of managerial and controlling
ownership thus supporting the entrenchment of interest hypothesis.
Table 1.4
*Beta coefficients are significant at 95% level of confidence
For service industry, when MCOWN was positive (0.3704), financial leverage was a
decreasing function of ROE (-0.3551) and an increasing function of ROA (0.5388). On the
other hand, for manufacturing industry when MCOWN was negative (-0.2551), financial
leverage was an increasing and signifcant function of ROE (1.2135) and a decreasing and
significant function of ROA(-1.1877). The combined effect of manufacturing and service
industries indicate that overall, when financial leverage is a decreasing function of managerial
and controlling ownership interest (-0.4339), it has a positive relation with ROE (0.4305) and
Inter-Industry Comparison and Overall OLS Regression Estimates
Service Manufacturing Overall
Statistics
Multiple R 0.6088 0.4559 0.4903
R Square 0.3707 0.2078 0.2404
Adjusted R Square 0.1189 0.1650 0.1973
Standard Error 0.0766 0.2236 0.2178
Observations 15 79 94
Variables Beta p Value Beta p Value Beta p Value
Intercept -1.4181 0.175 -0.4582 0.288 -0.5797 0.061
ROE -0.3551 0.655 *1.2135 0.001 *0.4305 0.040
ROA 0.5388 0.246 *-3.4504 0.001 *-1.1877 0.022
MCOWN 0.3704 0.173 -0.2551 0.319 *-0.4339 0.039
LnSize 0.0915 0.224 0.0584 0.063 *0.0751 0.007
InDummy -0.1194 0.381
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LnSize (0.0751) and a negative relationship with ROA (-1.1877). These suggest that the
relationship of financial leverage with profitability and size in manufacturing and service
industries is determined by MCOWN.